So the water board meeting was the night after the …er…fiasco (town hall meeting) and it was much more professional – at least on our side. We didn’t even yell “you’re rude”.

The meeting, called to order by the chairman, who is supposed to be – you know- professional, had so many open meeting law holes in it it smelled like Swiss cheese. I am on the board, and first they won’t let me get anything on the agenda, then all of a sudden they had me down for a gazillion items on the agenda. But the good part is (well after the chairman chided me for being on the board for almost two years saying, “you would think you would know how to make a motion”. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything mean by it…ahuh), the gazillion items were about to get shortened.

After the second motion died because of lack of a second I was getting the picture, I was being blackballed. Some days are like that, especially when you insist on honesty and transparency and duty from your board – they don’t like anyone rocking the boat. They had better put on their “floaties,” it’s about to get rockier.

When I was at the “fiasco” (town hall meeting) on Wednesday, Oct. 17th, 2012, one of our informed public member’s asked about the ADEQ report we had received in a prior meeting asking, “how did it go?” Of course someone on their side piped up and said it was perfect. And it was. But I didn’t appreciate the Mayer Water Improvement District’s field manager whispering spitefully in my ear, “you can thank Margie for that one.” And don’t you know, they put the report, and every little picture of every part of the wells up on the water district’s web site for us (I had asked to see the report since no one had provided it at the meeting). I thought that was a bit overkill at the time. They even provided the well numbers. Yes, thank you Margie!

…and so the Mayer Water Board was informed, at Thursday’s meeting, that the Lucas Well does not belong to Mr. O’Breasley but does in fact belong to the people of Mayer! No more worries about Mr. O’Breasley’s threats of taking “his” water away from the residents of Mayer. Maybe Mayer should take its water away from Mr. O’Breasley for all of his lying (which is recorded in the June 14, ’12 board minutes). Makes the management’s incompetence very obvious when this ‘discovery’ had to come from a concerned customer’s research. Very poor job of management Mayer Water.

That was some town hall meeting! Talk about “Hostile Takeovers”. The meeting started out with a sitting board member/aspiring to get elected to the board again, refusing to give up the microphone and spouting out inanities about how their side had been abused. It escalated from there to boos and hisses (their side). I thought our side was much more intellectual, they kept yelling, ” you’re rude” at the boo’ers and hiss’ers.

Of course the moderator looked none the better when she took the microphone away from the disgruntled board member and had her escorted out of the building by a Sheriffs’ Deputy. But at least the moderator apologized to the disgruntled board member. She was allowed to come back in – in a much more subdued manner I might add. But she did not apologize, that would have been common courtesy.

The only ones who came out smelling like roses were three of the candidates – Margie Good, Keven Jones, and Kathy King. They kept their cool, did what they came there to do, which was inform the public about themselves as potential board members, and acted like the ladies and gentleman they were.

There was a lot of good comments from the public about the candidates. No one spoke to me about the disgruntled board member…I was the moderator.

The public of Mayer, Arizona is calling a town hall meeting on October 17, 2012. It will be held at the Mayer Recreation Center off Miami street, from 6:30pm – 9:00pm. Public concerns over the Mayer Water District will be discussed by the public and the candidates running for Mayer Water District board.

A moderator will ask the Candidates general questions pertaining to being a board member, the public will then have a chance to put their questions to the candidates.

It should prove to be an informative and lively exchange between the public and their water board candidates!

If anyone has any questions or concerns about Mayer, drop us a line with your email or phone number in the comment box and we will get back to you.